Category Archives: Regeneration, Renewal And Resilience
Visiting Valencia
Valencia, Spain’s third largest city, offers much more than simply the industrial centre which many imagine. This mediaeval seat of learning and trade has a charm reaching far beyond the attractions of its wide sandy beaches and windswept sea.
Valencia is a wonderful place to visit; history and modernity go hand in hand with a fascinating range of things to do and enjoy. But it remains a city in transition where there’s still scope, as in many other cities ‘on the edge’, for better communication with those who come to enjoy and admire this evolving location. In some ways, however, that’s part of the adventure….
In 2007 Valencia plays host to a world-class event, the America’s Cup; but it also has an exotic living civic history and a rural hinterland, known so far to only a few, which encompasses the Albufera ornithological paradise and the ancient traditions of towns like Sagunt and Xativa.
Valencia, we now know, is The Place for everyone to be seen in 2007. It’s to host the America’s Cup on behalf of Switzerland, and everyone who’s anyone will be there.
Well, that’s next year. In the meantime, we turned up this August (2006) for our holiday, barely aware that the America’s Cup was on the agenda (though, come to think of it, we did have a brief encounter with the run-up to it on a trip to Marseilles last summer).
For us, arriving late on a hot August evening, the attraction was simply that Valencia is a city with history, sun and lots to see.
First impressions
Our rule-of-thumb is that the hotel we choose for our holiday should be near the historic centre of the selected sunny city destination; anywhere near a cathedral is usually a good way to ensure that, especially if the map shows the streets around the hotel as small and windy.
And so we found ourselves, that first evening, sitting in a paved square with its own uplit fountain outside the Astoria Hotel, serenaded by some very business-like passing musicians and enjoying a late meal after our travels. (We subsequently realised that ‘late’ is a different idea in the mind of a Brit from that of Valencians, whose young families dine out at times which seemed exotic even to us as oldies.)
Then next morning we began our annual adventure, to discover as much as possible about our host city whilst taking in the ambiance and enjoying a few of life’s little luxuries. Not hard to do in Valencia!
A city of contrasts
You can read all the guidebooks about a city, but nothing except direct experience takes you to the real thing. One lasting impression we have of Valencia is that it’s amazingly flat and easy to get around. Don’t, whatever you do, take a car – the local parking attendants are very diligent. But do get a street map and some walking shoes; this is easy terrain. Take your time and your ease and savour the freedom to roam which visitors to 
Valencia can enjoy. The mediaeval centre of the city is compact and rewarding for those who linger and explore it.
And do be prepared for surprises. Until you’ve seen it, you truly won’t be able to understand the impact of the Third Millennium City of Arts and Sciences, with the Palau de la Musica, its enormously impressive Science Museum, Congress Palace (still being built) and the wonderful Oceanografic, complete with shark tunnel, flamingos and leaping dolphins.
Nor can you really imagine the exquisite architectural balance of the Plaza de la Virgen which shares the centre of the old city with the Cathedral and other mediaeval buildings.
It’s a meeting point, a perfect setting for a relaxing break or meal and, almost unnoticed, adjacent to the site of roman remains, visible through cleverly placed glass partitions and in one place actually excavated and viewed via a glass-based water feature. Here is evidence before our very eyes of Valencia’s history from Roman times onwards, set with such sense of place that it feels almost unreal.
Valencia is green
Altogether a different experience is the greenness of Valencia. We had heard of the great Turia, the now-dry river bed which surrounds the old city and provides some ten kilometres of leisure space for locals and visitors alike. Walkers, cyclists, footballers (of all ages and both genders), relaxed locals and tourists mix with ease in this enormous space, enriched with much public artwork and trees of every sort, and spanned at many points by bridges ranging in design from the formidably modern to the elegantly ancient.
This is an open space, magnificently appointed, which must surely meet the needs of all who use and visit it – yet it came about only because city leaders feared another mighty flood, such as that in 1957, and so they decided to divert the river proper. Sometimes it is indeed possible to bring about good from catastrophe.
What was less familiar to us was Valencia’s stoutly walled (and thereby almost un-findable) Botanic Garden, which is administered by the University. It’s an oasis of clearly ordered information, calm and dappled light.
And further afield is the huge shallow lagoon of Albufera (we went on the Bus Turistica), just a metre deep for most of its five kilometre diameter, but home to many different birds and host to thousands of visitors who are transported in the traditional flat-bottomed boats of the local people.
Strangely, to most of us from the more Northern parts of Europe, almost none of these amenities has developed commercially. Of course in some ways that’s great, but in other ways not so. You can’t even buy a bottle of water on your trip to Albufera, and locating the entrance to the Botanic Garden is a real challenge – though admirably it was open on a Bank Holiday when everywhere else was closed. (In fact, many things, including – despite the jellyfish sea bathing scare – the main public swimming baths, were closed for the whole of August…)
More architecture
Back exploring the built environment, we were fascinated by the range of styles and shapes of the city. The fifteenth century UNESCO World Heritage site of La Lonja de los Mercaderes is one of the oldest secular institutional buildings (it’s a mediaeval silk trading hall), and just opposite it is the ornate early twentieth century Mercado Central, not to mention the extraordinary Estacion de Nord (sadly next door to the only real blot we saw on the valencian landscape, the Bullring, still put to its original use – though happily functioning as a market whilst we were in town) with its tiled salutation of Bon Voyage on the walls in many languages.
Wider afield
Conveniently, our hotel being just across the Plaza del Ayuntamiento (City Hall) from the Estacion de Nord, it was easy to get out of town on the train for the green hills which surround Valencia. Thus we found ourselves taking days out variously in Sagunt to the north and Xativa to the south – both famed for their fortress castles, but both also surprising us with other sights as well.
In Xativa we suddenly encountered an enormous street market – at least a kilometre long, with everything from wonderful dried herbs, to candles, carved wooden animals and (thousands of!) walking sticks – which had encamped for a week, marking the traditional Southern European Feast of the Assumption on 15 August. Here, where we had anticipated just a quiet stroll, were merchants from all over the world, South America, Africa and closer to home, many of them in traditional costume, plying their wares, selling food, playing music and generally in celebratory mode.
And in Sagunt, a place like Xativa which from the railway station seemed unappealing – and was certainly seriously unsignposted – we saw a magnificent open-air opera house, reconstructed in somewhat controversial style on the site of a Roman amphitheatre, overlooking Sagunt’s fabled old town but still far below the castle with its breath-taking vistas across the mountains and plains encompassing Valencia city, and onwards to the sea.
A place to revisit
Valencia is vibrant and varied, a place to return to when one can. Not every aspect of the transition to a modern city has been resolved, as the continuing use of the Bullring in its original role demonstrates, but it is evident that much progress has been made. There were of course things missing on our visit.
Nowhere in the city itself was any music, even small-scale performances (other than enterprising street musicians), to be found during August. Many places provided no clues for non-Spanish / Valenciano-Catalan speakers about how to conduct one’s business – always crucial if serious tourism is to be encouraged. Most tourist information points (even at the train station) were thinly stocked and closed in the afternoons and during festivals, even though thousands of visitors were in town. Signposting is almost non-existent, at least as far as we could see. Public transport remains largely a mystery to us even now, and after about ten at night seems effectively to disappear, which might be thought strange given the late hours kept by the locals.
But on the whole these are not aspects of great cities only now emerging into prominence which don’t also occur elsewhere. They are things which will need to be addressed as Valencia becomes more used to welcoming visitors from far and wide.
Valencia is a city with great promise for future, as well as a fascinating past. If you haven’t been there yet, it should be firmly on your list of places to look forward to.
Elected Mayors, Democracy And The Regional Agenda
The campaign for a debate about elected Mayors promotes ideas of democratic involvement and public accountability. It is for these reasons, not as a short-hand way to achieve city-regions, that this campaign should be encouraged. Even if elected Mayors become the norm, towns and cities will still need major regional input if they are to be effective players within Britain.
It’s not reallly news that some major cities have problems pulling things together to achieve progress; and nor, to be frank, is it news that Liverpool often seems to be amongst that number.
This is why I believe people should support the campaign for a referendum on a Mayor for Liverpool. For the referendum to happen would require 5% of those elegible to vote in the city to support it… not many one may think, but actually quite a proportion to raise in Liverpool, the city with the lowest election turn-out in the country. In my view, almost anything which encourages people in places like Liverpool to think positively about voting is a good thing.
Elected Mayors as housekeepers
It doesn’t however follow that, because moves to consider elected mayors are supported, that wide-ranging powers for such persons should necessarily be the order of the day. Cities like Liverpool need a named ‘responsible person’, who can bang heads together to get things done, and who must be prepared to take the flack if things don’t work. This person could be seen as taking the role of housekeeper, ensuring that things happen as they should, and that, for instance, streets and parks are clean and safe, events occur to schedule and budget, bids and proposals are submitted on time and well prepared etc.
It would be important for an elected Mayor to have defined, and achieved a consensus on, for instance, what is his / her role, and what is that of the City Chief Executive / Directorates, and of elected Councillors.
Not city-regions
Nor should it be assumed that an elected Mayor would take the lead role in the mooted city-regions. There may well be a role for city-regions as sub-regions, but that debate is still emerging and it is not for me convincing. In the end an excessive emphasis on city-regions not only loses the ‘hinterland’ of any metropoils, but also ignores the reality of regional infrastructure.
No toen or city in the UK outside London is on its own large enough to plan major transport, business development, or scientific investment. The things can only properly be addressed at regional level; as indeed they are in most parts of Europe.
Accountability
City regions and their merits or otherwise are a different debate from the current discussion about elected Mayors. If there’s now a decent debate about elected Mayors, that will be a good start. Maybe it will strengthen interest in the democratic process. And if it also encourages the idea that those who claim to give the lead require support, but must also be prepared to account very openly for their performance, that will be an excellent bonus.
A New Public Realm For Liverpool’s Hope Street
Liverpool’s Hope Street Quarter has just been refurbished, with an exciting and imaginative scheme of new public realm work secured by genuinely ‘bottom-up’ community engagement and local stakeholder buy-in. But this is only a beginning, for what could be one of the most important arts and cultural quarters in Europe.
Seasonal Food – Who Knows About It?
Over the past century our connection with basic food production has largely been lost. But now there are urgent environmental as well as direct health reasons to ensure everyone understands how food is produced. People as consumers (in both senses) need to know about food miles, short produce supply chains, nutritional value and the annual cycle of food production through the changing seasons.
One obvious starting point for this crucial ‘sustainability’ message is schools; and another is allotments.
The way that people find out about food seems to vary from generation to generation. This wasn’t always the case. For millennia you ate what you could grow and, if you were lucky, also what you could swap of your surfeit for someone else’s surfeit.
Then came the developing trade routes, some ancient and exotic (the Silk Road, also a route for spices and much else) and others, far more mundane to our modern minds, such as Salters Lane, the mediaeval travellers’ way which appears in British towns and villages as widely spread as Hastings, Redditch, Tamworth, Chester and Stockton-on-Tees, along with other similar reminders of trade in by-gone eras.
Also within Europe, for instance, were the horrors of such deprivation as the Irish potato famine of 1845-9 and more recently, for some within living memory, informal and formal food rationing (the World Wars of 1914-19 and 1939-45) – a deprivation it is now often considered was more of the palate than of essential nutritional substance.
Different expectations, the same basic understanding
In all these cases, however, fabulous or tragic, ancient or contemporary, people understood something about the genesis of their food. It was either from plants or from animals, nurtured intentionally or garnered whence it appeared. If you wanted to eat, you had to engage in some way in the production or location of your meal.
This, it could be argued, is what is different in times past from how things are today. It can certainly be said that although people must still find their food somewhere, it tends to come pre-prepared, in labelled packets, frozen or perhaps in tins, but not self-evidently from plants and animals.
In much of the western or ‘first’ world the conscious link with what is rather romantically referred to as ‘the soil’ has quite largely been lost. Most people now expect to be able to eat anything they can afford and that they take a liking to, any time they choose.
The downside of choice
Nobody would disagree with the general idea that variety in our diets is a good thing. But in practice it doesn’t seem to be like 
that. Our food arrives on the shop shelves (the only place now where most of us hunt and gather) processed and packaged, and often laden with things we don’t need as well as those we think we want….
For every interesting flavour and texture there are frequently too many empty calories, too much refined sugar and the ‘wrong sort‘ of fats, if not always too few vitamins and minerals. (Contrary to popular belief, frozen and tinned food can, we are told, be as nutritious in these respects as the ‘real thing’. Indeed, given that frozen and tinned foods are usually very fresh when they are processed, they may well have more nutritional value than the produce lying ‘fresh’ in the market.)
And herein lies the rub. There is a confusion in perceptions between ‘fresh’ and ‘well-preserved’ foods, between ‘produce’ and ‘ready meals’. And most people have only the vaguest of ideas about the essential differences between, say, strawberries or carrots flown in ‘fresh’ from California or South Africa, and those grown in glasshouses close to the point where they are sold…. which in turn means we cannot fully appreciate concerns around ‘food miles‘, local / short supply chains or, to return to our original theme, nutritional value-for-money.
Close to the land, close to the retailer
At last some retailers (including some of the biggest) are beginning to acknowledge some of these issues. They boast that they have short supply chains, that their produce are prepared immediately after cropping, that they are willing to promote sustainable ‘seasonal’ products; and they even sometimes offer nutritious recipes to cook from basic (and less basic) ingredients which are fresh and wholesome.
Now it is up to everyone to make sure they understand what is meant by all this.
For not the first time in this debate, much of the answer has to lie in education, in encouraging children to nurture living things; in making sure children know that food does not grow on supermarket shelves, and that they understand how the seasons can be harnessed to ensure a supply a healthy and varied diet.
The other obvious approach is helping people, wherever they live, sustain their own communities, to visit farmers’ markets, and grow at least some of their own food, in allotments or by sharing back garden space, or even just in pots.
From little acorns do great oak trees grow, just as from modest ideas about strawberry pots or rows of peas and potatoes can the notion of seasonal food once again take its place in our understanding of a sustainable world.
Energy Saving: Ergonomics And Logistics For Real People
The very high temperatures in the U.K. this week should give us all pause for thought about global warming. One idea which might come from that is a realisation that there are many small ways in which energy conservation could be ‘designed in’ to our every day lives. Perhaps we should even have citizens’ competitions to see who can come up with the best ideas?
We’re in the middle of a really big heat wave, and all of a sudden everyone is thinking about climate change and sustainable energy resourcing. Now, to mix our metaphors, is the time to strike on this one, whilst the iron is hot.
Not a few of us find it strange that we have to use energy to stay cool at the moment – rather the reverse of the usual problem; and the more curious of us have also begun to consider the mechanisms and costs of that commodity, still quite rare in domsetic buildings in the U.K., the air conditioning system. There is apparently a risk that more widespread adoption of this much vaunted facility could wipe out any gains in energy conservation which we in the U.K. are beginning to make. It can give a boost to the economies of very warm places, as it did in the USA, but at serious cost to the planet itself.
Ways to save energy
There are many ways that everyone can do their bit to save the planet, and these days most of us are aware of at least some of them. I wonder however whether we could do a little extra, by thinking more collectively about ‘designing in’ some of these strategies… could we have wall panels in easily reachable places displaying the switches for our televisons and the like (thus perhaps ensuring that the machines are fully actually turned off when not in use)? Why aren’t down-pipes automatically equipped with waterbutt linkage? What about individually operated small fans fitted as standard in most rooms of our homes, rather than hankering after complete air conditioning? Why aren’t gardens normally furnished with composting facilities? Where is the normal facility for low lighting (solar-boosted of course) via photo-sensors in our porches and other similar areas?
Gripping the public imagination
These are just a very few ideas, and doubtless they have all already been taken up somewhere. What would be good now, however, is if we made these suggestions central to our way of thinking; and what better time to start than when for just a few days we begin to realise what ‘global warming’ really means? Somehow, we need to get everyone’s imaginations gomg on this one. How about some sort of national competition or suggestion box?
Defra Is Five – And Has A Special Blog
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been going now for full five years, and it’s showing an impressively modern approach to public engagement, with its very own personal Blog, inviting public involvement, by the new Defra Secretary of State, David Miliband.
I was really pleased when, a few months ago, I heard that I was to be appointed Lay Member of the Defra Science Advisory Council , which is the scientific advisory body to Ministers in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
I can’t think of much which is more important than trying to get environment and food right. I have a lot to learn as yet about the inner-workings of a large Government Department, but I certainly found my first meeting, in April, quite fascinating. Here is a group of people, the actual Members of SAC and the secretariat and advisers within Defra itself who have hugely impressive credentials and take environment and all that goes with it very seriously indeed.
New Secretary of State, new Blog
Defra is quite a new Department, with an even newer Secretary of State, David Miliband, who was appointed just five weeks ago. The Department came into being on 8 May 2001, very soon after the 2001 General Election, in response to a recognised need to bring together various aspects of what is now its remit. That makes it five years old today.
So Defra may be just a youngster, but it’s a youngster with admirable attitude: the new Secretary of State has begun his very own Blog, under strict non-partisan rules, which is his attempt to reach out to more people and to encourage them to engage in the issues around environment and government.
David Miliband’s blog is being evaluated by the independent parliamentary body, The Hansard Society, to see how his attempt to ‘reach out’ is working. I very much hope that well before Defra is ten all Government Departments will have been following the Defra Secretary of State’s example for some time.
Sustainability: Where Private And Public Interests Meet
Sustainability is a huge challenge. Solutions won’t come cheap, but come they must. The imperative for meeting the huge challenge of global warming is now recognised by people across the economic and political spectrum, from Al Gore to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Sometimes there is a commonality of interest between sectors of the economy which is probably larger than the differences. The active involvement of no less a person than former US Vice President Al Gore at the 2006 Cannes film festival suggests that one place where this commonality now applies is sustainability. An Inconvenient Truth in some ways says it all.
It seems now everyone is agreed that sustainability is The Issue, and that Something Must Be Done. From the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to the various ‘Green’ not-for-profits, via vast organisations such as the National Health Service (NHS), there is a determination to address the issues – or at least some of them.
Same problem, different perspectives
There’s certainly no denying that the issue is pressing. Politicians of all the major parties have been keen to present their green credentials, and they even sometimes offer similar ‘solutions’; and the same applies across the private – public sectos of the economy. Everyone knows they must conserve energy, look for more sustainable ways to travel, reduce manufacturing and distribution transport requirements, save water and the like.
But there’s another way too in which these problems are often shared. To paraphrase a poltician who was recently challenged about his local authoritiy’s poor record on sustainabilty, that’s OK as long as no-one has to put up the rates or local taxes. Just as it does for commercial business people, increased expenditure frightens the politicos.
Where business meets politics
So here’s the crux of the matter. We know we need to change, as even some politicians such as Arnold Schwarzenegger who are far to the right the politics of Al Gore acknowledge, but for some the change may happen only if there are few or no costs involved. The temptation to ignore the longer term is sometimes great. It won’t be the same people in charge then; it will be someone else’s problem.
But we also all know in our hearts that’s balony. Sustainability and environmental challenges are increasing by the day. Tomorrow will be here all too soon.
And that’s where business comes in. Large amounts of money will accrue to anyone who can crack these enormous challenges in commercially and / or publicly ‘acceptable’ ways, so there’s a great deal of interest now in energy futures and sustainabilty. The nuclear energy debate continues, but there’s gold in them there tidal waves, wind turbines, biomasses and all the rest, if they can be exploited quickly enough.
Sometimes Adam Smith’s invisible hand is hovering right where it needs to be, ready to guide the market as soon as the political and public climate makes this possible. Sustainability is an issue bigger than any special interest or perspective.
Early Intervention In The Early Years
Critics of Sure Start, the U.K. government’s early years programme, have been vocal of late. Yes, there is evidence that benefit has not always as yet reached those small children and families who need it most. But this is work in progress, and it must be continued.
Sure Start, the huge government-led programme for 0 – 4 year olds, has been subject to quite a lot of criticism of late. It’s understandable that senior polticians, the Prime Minister himself amongst them, should want to see progress before the next general election. The problem however is that small children don’t become achieving teenagers in the same time-span.
This was never going to be easy. Sure Start is at present specifically focused on the least advantaged families, where take-up, especially for those parents who find themselves most challenged, is variable. But it’s essential that those with the governmental cheque book hold their nerve.
Evidence that it works
One thing which stands out in the Sure Start programme is its emphasis on activities such as reading aloud for parents (and that includes fathers) and children to share. There is a dedicated theme in all this about bedtime stories, and indeed about just simple conversation between little ones and their carers. This is a difficult activity to measure with any degree of accuracy, but we know from longitudinal studies that, over years rather than just months, it works.
Sure Start is not the first programme of this sort. There’s plenty of evidence from previous programmes here and in the U.S.A. that early intervention is really beneficial for those who become involved. But we’re still learning how to reach the least advantaged and those who feel most marginalised.
Adapt, perhaps; abandon? No
Workers in Sure Start have had to find the way forward for themselves. Inevitably in such a situation some have had more success than others – not least because some local contexts provide greater challenges or fewer already established resources than do areas elsewhere.
The move towards Children’s Centres, whilst unsettling for many of the professionals concerned, is if handled sensitively probably the right way to go. It would be a tragedy if critics determinedly take a short-term view which makes it difficult for the Government to continue with this work.
Dismissing the idea behind the initiative would result in damage to the futures of many thousands of children who deserve the better start in life.
Downtown Liverpool Week
Downtown Week (11-18 June 2006) is unique in the U.K. to Liverpool. Perhaps it’s a sign of a new independence of mind in our citizens that people in the city are developing this entrepreneurial event for themselves, and not because of some outside or official imperative?
‘Downtown’ is, in the words of the organisers of Liverpool’s Downtown Week 2006, ‘the beating heart of our great city, a celebration of the culture, the creativeity, the business, the new downtown living renaissance; indeed all the activities that are bringing our downtown back to life…. and, what’s more, it’s unique to Liverpool! There’s only one downtown in the UK and it’s at the heart our great metropolis!’
With enthusiasm like that, how could I deny myself the opportunity to be a part of this imaginative enterprise?
We all know about the entrepreneurial drive which moves some of the great downtown cities of the USA; here’s one Stateside bug which I really don’t mind reaching British shores.
Enthusiasm begets energy; energy begets engagement
There is a fundamental truth in the claims of downtowners:- there’s much more going on than we can ever know, but it’s both essential and fun to explore and find out as much as we possibly can. It’s a lesson also being learned, slowly and sometimes painfully, by other communities in other places.
This rich diversity, the result of centuries of ebb and flow, of enterprise and migration, is both a challenge and an enormous opportunity. It’s what Downtown Week is really about.
Scheduled events for Downtown Week include guided walks, visits to special places, commercial and retail opportunities, cultural events and whatever more various people can come up with. In the end, however, what we’re being offered is a chance to open our eyes and see what’s right before us.
Social glue
As ever, it boils down to finding ways to get people to communicate and, from that, to collaborate to mutually beneficial ends. It’s an engaging and enterprising technique which many of us find valuable (c.f. Arts Based Community Development), not least because it encourages people to explore areas of possible mutual interest.
Perhaps the point is that we need Downtown Week (and other civic and cultural celebrations) precisely because otherwise, in the concrete jungle, it’s difficult to find occasions to share and jointly to develop the sorts of relationships which make life better for everyone. This is recognised in one way or another by, amongst others, the Civic Trust and my own organisation, HOPES: The Hope Street Association.
A commonality of meaning
The old-style village way of life most surely had its shortcomings, but it also had established cycles of events with meanings common to all. It is perhaps a sign of a maturing metropolis that, after many years of invisibility, Downtown is now once more coming to the fore through community programmes and celebrations.
There’s so much still to be done, but at last there are signs it’s understood people have to do it for themselves.
Liverpool’s Downtown Week is still in its infancy. Before long however the infant will be a teenager and, like all teenagers, will doubtless seek to spread its wings elsewhere. As other parts of the UK also take up the idea of celebrating the heart of their civic communities, just remember where you heard about it first – from the real thing, the cutting edge of Liverpool’s city centre, from people who actually live, work and play in Downtown Liverpool.
A Taxonomy Of Enterprise For Growth Theory?
The knowledge economy is a huge area, with impact at every level from the micro to the massively macro. Yet there is still much debate, influenced by celebrated economists such as Robert Solow and Paul Romer, about whether technological progress produces economic growth, or vice versa. One commentator, David Warsh, has recently suggested that this debate currently throws only limited light on economists’ understanding of how economies make progress. Perhaps nonetheless there are interesting questions which arise here in terms, particularly, of the impact of ‘invention’ and ideas in, say, social enterprise environments?
If technological progress dictates economic growth, asks The Economist, (‘Economic focus: the growth of growth theory‘, 20 May 2006, p.96), what kind of economics governs technological advance?
The Economist article and blog praises David Warsh‘s new book, Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations, and his analysis of the shifting understanding of the genesis and impact of technological advance.
‘Ideas as goods’
In his book Warsh examines Nobel prize winner Robert Solow‘s supposed notion that ideas are bound to end up in diminishing returns (they are ‘exogenous’ to economic growth theory), and contrasts it with the proposition of Stanford University’s Professor Paul Romer, that ideas are endogenous to growth theory – that they can be part of it.
In this analysis there are as I understand it three main principles:
1. ideas are ‘non-rival’ – i.e. they can be used by as many people as care to, at the same time;
2. ideas are expensive to produce, but almost without cost to reproduce;
3. nonetheless, the business of reproducing ideas does not usually give much in respect of financial returns, because ideas, being ‘free’ to reproduce, end up having very little economic value.
But goods in what market?
From these three premises it is easy to see that ideas have to be ‘protected’ if they are to have ‘value’ in normal business markets. In other words, they have to be copyrighted; and at the same time obviously other people have to be educated to a level where they can usefully employ these ideas, once they have ‘bought’ them.
But does this apply to all types of ‘market’? I’ve been musing for a while on the idea that enterprise can be taxonomised in ways which make differentiation of impact (on ideas, people, systems) quite interesting. The normal ‘for profit’ economy behaves in one way, the ‘ideas generator’ ‘academic’ economy sometimes behaves rather differently, and the ‘social’ or ‘not-for-profit’ economy probably behaves in a different way again.
All these responses make sense to the ‘actors’ involved. Commercial business people aim very clearly at protecting their ideas in the knowledge economy; but academics and social entrepreneurs currently often promote their ideas without much reference to the ‘business’ value of the ‘invention’ because they are more concerned, respectively, with their status or with general social outcomes, than they are with how fast the actual money flows in their particular direction.
Shifting bases of ideas production?
Over time, things may change of course. The same edition of The Economist which carries the Growth Theory article also has a piece on shifts in the understanding of American academics concerning intellectual and real estate property values. Likewise, the economics of social enterprise is still in its infancy.
Maybe economics at the ‘small’ level – the level of academic and social-enterprise activity – is like the physics of particles… ‘nano’ behaviour is different from larger-scale activity in its impact.
Whatever (and here I’m trying to articulate something which others will understand much better than I), it’s likely that over time the behaviour of those who produce academic and / or ‘social-technical’ ideas in the new knowledge economies will change. The question is, how and when?
The impact of benefit from ideas
Who will ‘profit’ from these changes? And, in the end, could the impact of freely shared ideas be felt even on the global scale, if the sharing extended to developing economies as well as those where the knowledge economy already has huge impact?
Will the growing realisation that all ideas have economic value in some sense lead to attempts to ‘protect’ social-technical invention as well as as the ‘normal business’ sort? Or will there be a continued wish to leave the way open for sharing and mutual development – just as, for instance, Tim Berners-Lee chose to do, when he created the world-wide web?
Dreaming Realist 